Edmonton Home Prices on the Rise

Average residential resale prices shot up, waaaay up in March in Edmonton. Preliminary figures show the average residential MLS® sale price in Edmonton sitting at $343k compared to $317k last month, a figure not seen since March of 2008. The REALTORS® Association of Edmonton will release the final numbers in the next few days – expect to hear a lot about this in the media. Once the numbers are released we will post our final monthly report and charts as well.

I've had a lot of people asking me by email and our fun little chat box about their home values lately, specifically people seem to want to know how much their home is worth now, if it was worth $X last year or the year before. I can't stress strongly enough that the average sale price moving up or down a certain amount does not mean the value of every home in the city has gone up or down that amount. The average sale price tells us about trends in the market, but the value of each home is determined on a micro level. Every evaluation we do comes out differently – we are seeing some homes back to peak pricing while others lag seriously behind. If you want to know the value of your home we're happy to do an online home evaluation for you, just fill out this form and we'll get back to you with our evaluation by email (please keep in mind if we get a rush of evaluation requests this weekend our turn around time will be slower).

So, onto the numbers for Edmonton…. The average sale price of single family homes in Edmonton was up sharply in March to $395,621 compared to $372,262 last month and $349,862 last March. The last time the average was this high was April of 2008. The average sale price of condos in Edmonton was also up this month to $251,263 from $229,084 in February and $230,097 last March, and about equal with July 2008:

The average price per square foot also rose, indicating the average increase in average sale price was not just due to increased sales in higher price ranges (we will look into this further in an upcoming post):

Sales of single family homes were up as well, 781 single families homes sold in Edmonton last month compared to 543 last month and 636 last March:

Condo sales did not increase as much as single family home sales; 376 condos changed hands in Edmonton in March compared to 347 in February and 327 last March. Condo sales are similar to the numbers posted in 2005 and 2008:

We have not done a special report for our subscribers in a couple of months, but we will be doing a special Spring Market Report soon so subscribe today if you don't want to miss out.

Dan

Clearly the market has bounced backed in terms of price from last year. However there are signs of weakness despite one month price increases. Look at inventory and new listings which I believe are better leading indicators.

One month of data will have some noise and seasonal component to it. Prices are not rising at a annual rate of 75% for SFH and 116% for condos. My tea leaves tell me prices will actually be lower this time next year.

Nic

One month predictions aren’t too difficult… or useful for that matter. I’m working on projections further out, but I’m not confident at this point to make any whole-hearted predictions yet. Frankly I’ve been too busy with other things to work on it…

BearClaw, I couldn’t agree more, there’s a lot of noise month to month. That’s why I prefer to talk about price per square foot, there’s not near as much noise in those numbers.

There’s no way in hell that March’s rate of increase for prices indicates an equivalent rate for the year. That being said, I do see subtle reason to GUESS we have another 5-7% to go this year. But I wouldn’t bet my house on it the way I would have on my prediction for March.

Also, a comment on inventory: we’re seeing the rate of increase quite high right now, but I think that’s primarily because everyone’s been trying to list before interest rates jump too much so they can entice buyers at lower rates. I kind of look at it this way… there’s X number of people wanting to list this year. Usually the times they list are distributed (in some sort of seasonal distribution) over the course of the year. This year, there’s a bias towards the beginning of the year because of impending fear of rates rising. But, that doesn’t change X. There’s still relatively the same number of people wanting to list over the year, so I’d GUESS that after seeing a high rate of listing early this year, we’ll see it taper off quite sharply later in the year.

You have given good information about Edmonton Home prices and it is very easy to see Condo Sales and average sale price in those graphs.I am so glad to read this post and all information of home prices.

GM

Anyone who can afford a 20% down payment will wait until after the April gov’t deadline to start looking, as they know all the people without the down payment will be scrambling to buy before the deadline.

This will keep prices relatively steady after the deadline.

Nic

Hi Nic,
I was disappointed to have to delete your comment, since I was so impressed with the accuracy of your prediction this month. Swearing is a great way to get your comment deleted, as are personal attacks and name-calling. See the “Code of Conduct” to to the right of this comment. Thanks, Sara.

Nic

I’m Italian, what can I say? I guess I forgot that this is YOUR blog and you have to maintain some kind of professional moderation… fair enough.

We’ll see how my track record with predictions evolves over the months to come I suppose, and really, I expect harsh criticism because there’s an ocean of predictions out there claiming just about anything you could want or fear. Most of them are by necessity wrong, and people know this, so they’re prone to recoil at anyone bold enough to say anything… hell (I mean heck) I recoil just as readily!

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